Real-time transport protocol (RTP) multiplexing is a bearer data transport scheme currently being used by various packet-based networks which allows multiple low bit-rate audio streams associated with different user plane connections (i.e., different RTP sessions) to be transported in a single UDP/IP packet. Using RTP multiplexing allows a network to reduce the significant bandwidth overhead created by UDP/IP headers of individual packets. Namely, an RTP multiplexed packet includes a single UDP/IP header and multiple RTP payload frames. By eliminating all the otherwise unnecessary UDP/IP headers of the individual payloads in the RTP multiplexed packet, the overall bandwidth of a packet network may be reduced significantly.
At present, however, there are difficulties with communicating packets between two media gateways or peer nodes depending on the connecting interface. Specifically, a media gateway in a home network may not be configured to communicate packets via RTP multiplexing because RTP multiplexing is either not supported or not defined by the existing interface. For example, although a media gateway may be able to successfully communicate RTP multiplexed packets with GSM access networks and 3GPP core networks because these networks support RTP multiplexing, the same media gateway may be unable to send RTP multiplexed packets to a peer node in a femtocell access network because a femtocell interface only supports RTP multiplexing in the uplink connection. Similarly, RTP multiplexing difficulties may arise when the media gateway attempts to communicate with a peer node in a network in which RTP multiplexing is not defined, such as an UMTS access network, an IMS core network, or wireline network.
Accordingly, there is a need for systems, methods, and computer readable media for supporting a plurality of RTP multiplexing enablement methods in a media gateway.